Experimental study of antiparkinsonian action of the harmine hydrochloride original compound

Paradigms and Success Stories of Natural Products in Drug Discovery Against Neurodegenerative Disorders (NDDs)

Neurodegenerative disorders (NDDs) are multifaceted complex disorders that have put a great health and economic burden around the globe nowadays. The multi-factorial nature of NDDs has presented a great challenge in drug discovery and continuous efforts are in progress in search of suitable therapeutic candidates. Nature has a great wealth of active principles in its lap that has cured the human population since ancient times. Natural products have revealed several benefits over conventional synthetic medications and scientists have shifted their vision towards exploring the therapeutic potentials of natural products in the past few years. The structural mimicking of natural compounds to endogenous ligands has presented them as a potential therapeutic candidate to prevent the development of NDDs. In the presented review, authors have summarized demographical facts about various NDDs including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), Huntington's disease (HD) and various types of sclerosis in the brain. The significant findings of new active principles of natural origin along with their therapeutic potentials on NDDs have been included. Also, a description of clinical trials and patents on natural products has been enlisted in this compilation. Although natural products have shown promising success in drug discovery against NDDs, still their use is associated with several ethical issues which need to be solved in the upcoming time.

Haloperidol-induced catalepsy as an animal model for parkinsonism: A systematic review of experimental studies

Several useful animal models for parkinsonism have been developed so far. Haloperidol-induced catalepsy is often used as a rodent model for the study of motor impairments observed in Parkinson's disease and related disorders and for the screening of potential antiparkinsonian compounds. The objective of this systematic review is to identify publications that used the haloperidol-induced catalepsy model for parkinsonism and to explore the methodological characteristics and the main questions addressed in these studies. A careful systematic search of the literature was carried out by accessing articles in three different databases: Web of Science, PubMed and SCOPUS. The selection and inclusion of studies were performed based on the abstract and, subsequently, on full-text analysis. Data extraction included the objective of the study, study design and outcome of interest. Two hundred and fifty-five articles were included in the review. Publication years ranged from 1981 to 2020. Most studies used the model to explore the effects of potential treatments for parkinsonism. Although the methodological characteristics used are quite varied, most studies used Wistar rats as experimental subjects. The most frequent dose of haloperidol used was 1.0 mg/kg, and the horizontal bar test was the most used to assess catalepsy. The data presented here provide a framework for an evidence-based approach to the design of preclinical research on parkinsonism using the haloperidol-induced catalepsy model. This model has been used routinely and successfully and is likely to continue to play a critical role in the ongoing search for the next generation of therapeutic interventions for parkinsonism.

Circumstantial Overdose Management of an Efficient Cancer Cell Photosensitizer with Preclinical Evidence: A Biophysical Study

In this article, pharmacological management of circumstantial overdose of an anticancer drug, Harmine (HM), under in vitro and in vivo conditions is described and further validated by employing in silico methods. HM, an efficient cancer cell photosensitizer, interacts extensively with nontoxic β-cyclodextrin (β-CD). Steady-state fluorescence studies and molecular docking analysis established differential nature of molecular inclusion depending on the relative concentrations of β-CD. Presently, β-CD is commonly used as a standard drug-delivery vehicle but its application for controlled drug withdrawal is rarely explored. Flow cytometric results and in vivo investigations on a zebrafish model showed that conditional overdose of preadministered drug molecules can be efficiently removed by encapsulating successfully within nontoxic β-CDs, albeit by controlled application of the same. This is an approach to manage the cytotoxicity of a drug in a safe way that is already administered. We believe that this β-CD-mediated withdrawal of drugs may find possible applications in controlled capturing of excess or unused drug inside living systems and reducing the unwanted toxicity associated with chemotherapeutics.

Insilico analysis of marine indole alkaloids for design of adenosine A2A receptor antagonist

Neurological disease is the disease associated with most of geriatric population in the world. The diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are associated with the change in the life style in current era. Treatment of these diseases normally focused on the agents which can able to manipulate the neurotransmitter release, so it is associated with severe side effects. Adenosine receptors are the upcoming targets for the inflammatory as well as neurological diseases as agents like istradefylline are in the clinical use. Marine natural products are the rich source of the valuable drug like substances, number marine alkaloids are known for their ability to pass blood brain barrier (BBB) which is major hurdle in the neurological drug discovery. Here, we report the virtual screening of some marine alkaloids for adenosine 2 receptor binding potential. Results indicated topsentin C, 6'-debromohamacanthin, 6-hydroxydiscodermindole and discodermindole are having excellent binding affinity towards the adenosine 2A receptor than other selected alkaloids.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.